A Beautiful Life
by panpipes
Summary: What will Paige and Leo, the last remaining of the legacy of the Charmed Ones, do when Leo and the late Piper's daughter, Melinda, is kidnapped by a demon intent on making the child her heir? Can they even keep it together long enough to attempt a rescue?
1. Happier Than Ever

A/N: Eat my dust. No, Psychosis isn't finished yet, nor have I abandoned it. If you *really* want more, go boost some spam reviews! And I'll update. Heh. I just wanted to get this show on the road because I started it forever ago and found it again yesterday, before deciding to continue. Hope you enjoy.  
  
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A Beautiful Life  
  
*  
  
Her back and shoulders lifted slightly as she breathed, her tiny nose making airy sounds and her mouth twitching softly. Eyes closed, she slept peacefully, sprawled out, face down, head to the side.  
  
Leo stood in the dark, his body framed in the light coming from the doorway behind him. His arms were folded and his shoulder leant against the doorframe. He'd been watching her for half an hour now, lost in his own thoughts, his own love, grief, sorrow, compassion. She was so beautiful yet so alone in the world. How was a child supposed to grow without a mother?   
  
No. She had him. He could be her father and mother if he had to. Because she was all that mattered now, all he had left.   
  
Slowly he closed his eyes, feeling tears beginning to gather in them. He thought he'd cried all there was to cry, but still the tears would come, until his cheeks were raw and sore. Sometimes he felt the pain so much he never thought he'd get over it. But there were the highs as well as the lows, and the little girl sleeping in front of him, for Leo, she was the high.  
  
Melinda.  
  
His daughter. Piper's daughter. Even thinking her name brought a tight knuckle into his mouth and his head down. A tear slid down his cheek, and he quickly wiped it away. There was nothing that could be done now, nothing.   
  
Leo sniffed quietly, trying to stay silent as to not wake the sleeping child. She slept on, breathing deeply. Melinda had always been able to sleep through earthquakes; a tiny noise wouldn't stir her in the slightest.  
  
A hand touched Leo's shoulder from behind, and he quickly intook a short gasp of air and spun around, stumbling backwards, closer to Melinda, protective. Her before him, it was always to be that way. Her before him.  
  
"Sorry," Paige whispered. "Didn't mean to scare you." She craned her neck into the room and glanced towards Melinda, checking up. Not that she needed to. Leo would never let anything happen to his child, not after what had happened to his own wife.   
  
Stepping aside to let Paige in more, Leo relaxed. He didn't speak; he had nothing to say. Acknowledging this, Paige swallowed and paced into the room, keeping her breathing quiet.   
  
"It's half three in the morning," she told Leo.   
  
"I couldn't sleep." He replied simply.  
  
Paige breathed in slowly, trying to remain strong. She looked into Leo's eyes, so full of pain and misery. Leo returned the glance. The look in her eyes mirrored his. He wasn't the only one who'd lost someone. Paige had lost her two sisters. Two people who had brought her into a family of so much love, so much closeness, and had helped Paige accept who she was. Now she was alone. All she had was her brother in law and her niece.   
  
Melinda was what kept them both from being destroyed.   
  
Pursing her lips, Paige nodded. "Me neither." She'd replied to his statement several minutes after he'd said it himself, but the thread of conversation was never thick anymore. "Nights are always the worst."  
  
A small cough from the darker area where Melinda's bed was brought both their attentions sharply towards the sleeping child. Silence fell as they scrutinised the form of the tiny, frail human being, checking that she was safe.   
  
Confirming she was okay, Leo turned back to Paige. "Night... I know. It's where you have more time to think about... things."  
  
"I'm thinking about becoming nocturnal," Paige said, her voice slightly joking but not too much so. She'd lost a lot of her humourous personality since events had occurred that were so monstrous jokes and sarcastic wisecracks didn't seem to have a place in life anymore. Not a lot did.  
  
Leo gave a small smile, and his eyes returned to Melinda. "She looks like her, don't you think?"  
  
Paige felt her face crumple under the pressure of trying not to cry. A small gasp left her, and she choked on the tears that were forcing their way out. Her voice cracked, coming out high and thin, conveying the utter misery that dejected her face. "Leo every time I look at her I see them. Not just Piper. Phoebe too."  
  
Her words and emotion touched Leo to the brink of breaking down himself. But he couldn't. Always someone had to remain, to be the strong one. It was always the way they had operated. If someone had broken, the other had to be tough, the pillar, until all was well again. Or at least bearable again. He allowed himself a few tears, hoping Paige wouldn't see he was close to her status.   
  
Looking up, Paige tried to quieten her strangled breathing, and saw the glistening tears on Leo's cheeks. He was trying so hard not to cry, but it was fast becoming too much. It always became too much. Grief pulled her further in, and out of consideration for Melinda, she began to walk away, out of the child's room, out of sanctuary. Because even sanctuary was too painful, the memories were too strong.   
  
Would life ever get any better?   
  
A low moan escaped Paige's throat, and she hurried towards her own room, quickly closed the door behind her, and slid onto her bed. She picked up the framed photo of her, Piper and Phoebe, which Leo had taken on a beautiful fall day, where the brown leaves were littered around their feet and Piper's stomach bulged out with the life she was carrying inside her.  
  
Paige examined the photo, the naturalness of it all, the glowing grin on Piper's face, Phoebe's obvious laughter, and Paige's content smile. Happiness captured, one moment of pure happiness. Paige's hands began to tremble. She would never feel this way again. Never again.  
  
Choking out sobs of pain, Paige replaced the photo by her bedside, always the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she saw at night, just for that moment in the morning where she'd forgotten it all and believed that they were still here, still with those smiles of happiness and love.   
  
Even a second later, when she properly woke up and realisation smashed into her like a truck out of control, and the grief came again, it was worth it, just for that moment. The small moment when she truly believed none of this had happened. That one moment where happiness seemed achievable. That one moment when she was happy.  
  
* 


	2. A Grand Day Out

A/N: Mmm, low-grossing at the box office in the first week.  
  
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A Beautiful Life  
  
*  
  
Leo hoisted Melinda up and placed her at his side, carrying her on his hip. She giggled and clung to his chest, as if her trust of him wasn't enough. He would never let her fall, but it was only natural that she felt the need to protect herself. Besides, that was a good thing. In the lives they led, protecting yourself was a huge deal.  
  
Placing a couple of cans into the shopping cart, Paige glanced upwards at the father and daughter and couldn't help smiling. They looked truly happy in each other's company, just like they should.   
  
"Daddy let me ride in the cart," Melinda demanded.   
  
Leo laughed. "You're much too big for it," he said. "A big girl like you shouldn't even want to be carried, think yourself lucky you're getting this."  
  
Melinda pouted. "Please daddy? Just for a little while." She looked towards Paige. "Aunt Paige, please?"  
  
Melting at Melinda's pleading look, Paige glanced towards Leo in approval. "Come on, you're only young once," she said, smiling.  
  
With a contented sigh, Leo grunted as her manoeuvred his little girl's body away from his hip and into the small chair that was built into the shopping cart. She squealed with delight, happy to get her way and revelling in the simple fun of being pushed around. Placing his hands on the handle, Leo carefully began to push Melinda around the store. Paige continued to pick up odds and ends, and paused at the refrigerators with the ready-made meals. Sometimes when something came up, they never had time to cook anything. Besides, it wasn't like Paige or Leo were cooking virtuosos. That had always been Piper. Paige sighed in sadness. How come everything she saw reminded her of her sisters?  
  
Pushing it to the back of her mind, Paige grabbed several ready made pasta meals, and on her way back to Leo and Melinda she picked up a tray of muffins which they could freeze.   
  
Making her way to the area the shopping cart had last been, she stopped when she reached the aisle and it was empty, apart from an abandoned shopping cart. They must've moved on, Paige told herself, and checked the next few aisles. There were other shoppers littered about, but no sign of Leo and Melinda.   
  
"Paige," Leo called from behind her.   
  
Sighing in relief, Paige turned around only to get the shock of her life when she saw Leo was alone. He was carrying a loaf of bread and a carton of milk.   
  
He reached her side. "Where's Melinda?" he asked expectantly, glancing around for his daughter.   
  
"You mean you're not with her?" Paige asked quickly.   
  
Leo's smile disappeared. "I thought you were with her," he said, his voice completely serious.   
  
"But when I left you were pushing her around."  
  
"No, when I left you were giving her a lollipop. I saw you!"  
  
Paige blanked. "What?" she cried incredulously. "Leo, I didn't give Melinda anything. When I left, you were pushing her around. That's the truth."  
  
"Paige, it was you. I saw your face."  
  
"Leo I swear..."  
  
Leo cut their little argument short with the matter at hand which was far more important than their squabble. "Well then where is she?"  
  
There was a silent pause as they stared at each other, then as if on cue both burst into a run, bolting to the aisle that both had left the child in the care of the other.   
  
The abandoned shopping cart Paige had seen was still there. Turns out it was theirs. Leo felt all the air being knocked out of him. "Melinda!" he yelled suddenly, "Melinda where are you?"  
  
"She's probably just wandered off," Paige said, trying to conceal her panic.   
  
Leo shouted his daughter's name once more before turning to Paige. "No, these chairs are practically impossible for a girl her size to get out of. Someone must've helped her out."  
  
Paige's mouth went dry. Leo darted over to a shopper and desperately asked the woman if she'd seen a little girl.  
  
"Yeah, a few minutes ago... but she was with her," the woman indicated Paige's direction with a nod of her head. "Haven't seen her since."  
  
Biting her lip, Paige tried to understand that somehow someone who had looked exactly like her had been interacting with her own niece. It was too coincidental to be a coincidence. "Look, this is really important," she said, her voice sounding at its most serious. "What was the woman who looked like me and Melinda doing?"  
  
"Melinda? Oh, um, well," the woman paused, wondering if who she'd seen was Paige's twin sister or something. But they were even wearing the same clothes. And that's just plain weird.  
  
"Please!" Leo begged. The urgency in his voice made the woman realise how important whatever had happened to the girl was to him. He was definitely the father.  
  
"Uh, the woman... who looked like you... she took the child and picked her out of the cart, then they walked away hand in hand."  
  
"Oh god," Leo uttered, and without another word, ran away towards the checkouts.   
  
Paige paused for a moment, and thanked the woman for her help, before taking off after Leo. As they reached the checkouts, Paige looked towards the doors and saw them; Melinda and a woman who looked exactly like Paige!  
  
"Leo!" she alerted him, pointing towards her niece and the impostor who were making a sharp exit.  
  
"Melly!" Leo cried and dashed after them, Paige hot on his heels. "Stop!"  
  
The Paige impersonator heard the yelling behind her and turned around, seeing her pursuers. Quickly, she roughly grabbed and picked up Melinda, hoisting her up so the child was looking over her shoulder. And she saw her own father and real aunt running towards her desperately.   
  
Panicked and confused, she reached a hand out to her anguished family. "Daddy!"   
  
Her kidnapper began to run away, strongly carrying her through the throng of people and trying to disappear into the crowd. Leo and Paige exited the store, and heard Melinda's cries over the mutterings of people, and forced themselves through the pedestrians in the direction of her voice.   
  
The kidnapper darted into a side alley and paused for breath. Melinda was thrashing about now, trying to escape. The kidnapper put her down on the ground, before forming an energy ball in her hand. "Tell me child, do you wish to live?"  
  
Startled and terrified at the appearance of this weapon, Melinda nodded, her saucer eyes glistening.  
  
"Then stop struggling or I will kill you." The kidnapper picked Melinda back up just as Leo and Paige came into sight. They glanced down the alleyway and saw Melinda begin to struggle once again at the woman who looked exactly like Paige's grasp again.  
  
"Help!" Melinda squealed, as the kidnapper grinned sardonically at her prize's family.   
  
"Let her go!" Leo commanded.   
  
Paige threw a hand out. "Mel-" she was stopped short from calling for her niece with her power as an energy ball smashed into her and threw her backwards. She rolled off the sidewalk and onto the road. She was still conscious, and raised her head. "Leo... get her!"  
  
"Try it," the warlock sneered, and blinked out.   
  
"Melly!" Leo screamed and threw himself into the alleyway; into where his daughter had just been as if there was some small chance she would still be there. But it was a stupid thing to hope. She was gone. He sank to the ground. "Oh god, Mel..."  
  
* 


	3. Reluctant Recollections

A/N: Evanescent, ask and ye shall receive. Not that this chapter wasn't pre-written...  
  
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A Beautiful Life  
  
*  
  
Paige pulled herself up, her entire body weakened from the blast of the energy ball.   
  
"Are you okay?" asked a passing man, pausing to check on the injured-looking woman lying on the road. He stooped down onto one knee and took her hand, gazing earnestly at her in concern.   
  
"Yes, yes," Paige told him urgently, "Fine." She paused, and looked up into his eyes. "Thank you," she added, with true gratefulness in her voice. It was rare to find such kindness from a stranger.  
  
He nodded and continued on his way. Checking both ways for signs of any other people, Paige was extremely happy to find it was empty. It was still a bad idea, but she had to use her power; it was too painful to attempt to crawl all the way over to Leo. She felt herself orbing out, and reappeared by Leo's side. She fell onto the ground, realising just how injured she was from the energy ball.   
  
"Haven't I lost enough?" Leo cried towards the heavens. "Haven't I suffered enough?" He whole body shook in agony, overcome with grief. It was too much. First Piper and Phoebe, now this. How was he supposed to live his life if all he ever did was lose those most dear to him? He fell silent, choking on his tears.   
  
Paige was crying too, anguish at her niece being kidnapped - and by a warlock no less - and also sheer sympathy for her brother-in-law. They'd both been through so much, when was it going to end? "God Leo, I am so... what're we gonna do?"  
  
After a long pause where Leo gathered himself together again, he looked up at her determinedly. His tear soaked face did not hinder his ability to look so strong and so set-minded. "We're gonna get her back," he said, "and we're gonna teach her about her heritage."  
  
Paige looked up at him, shocked. "We are? But-"  
  
"Paige," he said, almost laughing. It wasn't a happy laugh. "She just got kidnapped by a warlock. She just blinked. She saw an energy ball. What else can we do? It's obvious the demons are never gonna let us go, so we're gonna have to teach her to look after herself."  
  
Knowing this was true, Paige nodded. "She is half Whitelighter after all. I can write something to unbind her powers." She winced as she tried to move, and saw blood seeping through her shirt. Leo saw it too.  
  
"Oh, god, Paige, I'm sorry."  
  
"It's okay, I'm okay, honest."  
  
But she gratefully lay back as Leo held his hands over her, sighing in pleasure as the pain gradually went away. A moment later, she was fine again. She sat up. "Thank you."  
  
He nodded, his face stony. Silence fell for a moment as he frowned in concentration. Then his face crumpled. "Dammit, I can't locate her!" He leant heavily against the wall. "I can't sense her to orb to her," he cried in frustration. "They must be a step ahead of us, they've blocked my powers." Once again he dissolved into tears. Paige joined him in his pain, but quickly became aware that they were sitting in a dirty alleyway.   
  
"Let's go back home, and we will work this out from there."   
  
Leo nodded and orbed out without a word. Grimacing and wiping her sleeve across her mouth, Paige lowered her head and followed suit.  
  
When she reappeared in the manor, Leo was nowhere to be seen. "Leo?" she called, sensing his presence somewhere in the house, but he didn't appear to be downstairs. Of course, Mel's room. Paige negotiated the stairs as quickly as she could, and saw him crouched on the floor beside Melinda's bed. "Are you okay?" she asked, instantly berating herself for asking such a stupid question. Of course he wasn't okay!  
  
"Paige," he said in a high and choked voice. "Can you leave me alone for a little while?"  
  
Feeling a little rejected, Paige nodded. "Of course sweetie. I'll... I'll be in my room if you need me."  
  
"Thanks," he sniffed, leaning forwards onto his little girl's bed and resting his head in his arms. His body began to shudder again, and Paige watched sadly for a moment before respecting his wishes and heading into her own room. Once she'd closed the door, she sat on the bed and picked up the photo for the forth time so far that day.   
  
So much happiness, so much love, togetherness, conveyed in one single picture. Paige wiped the tears off the glass frame and let her thoughts swamp her in dismay and regret. Why hadn't she told them she loved them more? Why hadn't she been nicer to them? Her thoughts were ridiculous of course, she'd always been perfectly nice and sisterly towards them, but when you lose someone, you tend to dwell on what you didn't do rather than what you did do.  
  
Paige gazed at the swell in Piper's belly in the photo, and how Piper did seem to have achieved that expectant 'glow', as if she knew what an amazing and beautiful creature was growing inside her at the time. She'd been an exceptional mother, patient, understanding, empathetic and loving. Four and a half years she'd been with Melinda, four and a half years were all the child had seen of her mother. She was a few months past five now. Paige wondered how much of her mother Melinda remembered, and how much she would when she was older.   
  
Melinda was to learn that mommy did not die of sickness alongside Aunt Phoebe, Paige realised. If they were to teach Melinda about her magical heritage then they had to tell her what had really happened to the generation before her. Why had they decided to keep it from her this long? Once she'd given birth, Piper had had a complete change of heart, becoming totally adamant that Melinda should be protected from this world until she was old enough to understand. It looked like that opportunity would never arise now.  
  
And now, wherever she was, Mel was probably seeing the world she'd been kept from at it's most horrific viewpoint. Paige squeezed her eyes shut, once again filling with regret at her choices. She was plagued with shameful guilt and regret, from every little corner of her life. She always seemed to do everything the wrong way.  
  
No, Piper and Phoebe hadn't died of illness. They hadn't been sick. They'd been killed, murdered, destroyed. Two beautiful lives crushed so easily at the hands of one single demon. Piper had been the first, so it wasn't even as if they'd gone together. Phoebe had had to live with the grief for a few days before she was killed too, just before she and Paige vanquished the beast. Phoebe's one true love, flame of seven years, soul mate, became her murderer. Paige had never trusted that man, much as she'd tried.   
  
While Piper's death had been a quick energy ball blow to the head, Phoebe's was more prolonged. Misery wasn't through with her yet. Once Cole had blasted her into the wall with an energy ball she'd slumped to the floor, crying and near death. Cole had attacked Paige, but her orbing powers saved her.   
  
Concentrating on saving Phoebe only seemed to anger her sister further. "Don't, Paige, just say the spell!" Phoebe had commanded, her voice full of rage. "Please, don't care what happens to me."  
  
Tearfully, Paige had turned on Cole, on his second reign as The Source. That man could never get enough evil, it seemed. But this spell had been crafted so that he could never come back, not ever. And that pained Phoebe the most. Not only was she still dealing with the recent death of her sister and was close to death herself, but she had to watch her one true love die and there was no hope of ever seeing him again.   
  
His eyes had been locked with hers the whole time, and when he disappeared into the pile of ash, which the wind swept away ever so slowly, Phoebe had looked at Paige, and for a fleeting second her eyes had filled with hatred. She had killed Phoebe's soul mate. The look in her eyes had disappeared instantaneously, of course, and a weak smile took its place. A smile that gradually faded as Phoebe's life gradually faded away. Paige had tried to heal her, but the wounds weren't only physical. Phoebe had suffered too much loss, from her mother and grandmother through Prue and Piper and now Cole. It was too much for her. She'd given up on life mentally as well as physically. There was no healing her now.  
  
And so Phoebe had let go.  
  
And so had Paige, to an extent. But she knew she must hold on, for Leo and for Melinda. She must stay strong. She must hold on. 


	4. Scrying Outside the Box

A/N: Tut Hollie, that was the rubbish parts because they were old. This is where I started writing again from. If it gets worse, I so don't want to know.  
  
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A Beautiful Life  
  
*  
  
The next day started for Paige at the ungodly hour of five in the morning. A large crash from the attic startled her into the world of the waking, and blearily she tried to make sense of what the noise had been. Eventually she decided to try her luck and actually find out for herself.   
  
It became evident from the dark sweat stains on his shirt and the dirt on his face that Leo had been up all night. His face looked stretched out and thin, and his eyes had that weary look in them Paige only recognised all too well from the mirror.  
  
He was currently scrabbling through a large chest which he'd excavated from the dark recesses of one of the disgustingly dusty corners of the attic, occassionally retrieving oddly coloured bottles and sheets of aged paper, and tossing them onto a well-placed set of pillows behind him.   
  
Unsure of how to approach this desperate man, Paige edged into the room and cleared her throat lightly.  
  
It was loud enough for Leo to stop still, his left hand perched on the rim of the chest, right are groping the interior, knees bent on the floor and breathing rather rigid. Eventually, with a straining movement, he looked over his right shoulder and regarded her silently with wild, crazed eyes. After a moment of cool scrutation, he seemed to relax and flipped himself over so he was sitting, legs straight and arms flopping to his sides. "I can't find it," he groaned.  
  
"Find what?" Paige frowned, taking a few more cautious steps into the mess, careful not to step on anything. "What are you looking for?"  
  
"The damn... crystal!" Leo replied angrily. "For the damn stupid map! So you can scry for Melly and we can find her and save her."  
  
Warning bells went off in Paige's mind. She knew that Leo knew full well where the crystal and map were kept; rolled up neatly behind the Book of Shadows, with the crystal tying the map together. It didn't adversely mean Paige thought Leo was lying to her, but it worried her slightly that he was slipping into the world of obsessing. "Leo, um, sweetie," she coaxed, offering her hand to help him to his feet, "the map and crystal are over there."  
  
Taking his sister-in-law's outstretched hand, Leo grunted as he got up, his whole body shaking uncertainly. He was exhausted. Slowly, he glanced to his left and saw the map and crystal. Wordlessly he gathered them up, cleared a space among the debris on the floor and then laid the map out gingerly, motioning for Paige to kneel beside him. "Go on," he urged. "Do your thing."  
  
Knowing that it was pointless to argue, Paige bowed down and succombed to her concentration, the meditative state she often reclined into for such delicate activities as scrying. Gently, she took up the crystal in her right hand and clasped the thin silver chain the stone was welded onto between her thumb and forefinger. With a soft circular movement in her wrist, she swung the gem in small, weilding ovals, and began to raise her right arm so she could negotiate the map in an ordered fasion. Starting at the top left corner of San Francisco, Paige bit her lip and closed her eyes as she navigated her way from left to right, then back to the left after bringing her arm a little lower down the map.   
  
In the duration of just under ten minutes, she had circled the entire map four times, and didn't feel so much as a twinge in the crystal. Eventually, she came to a halt, hand still suspending the stone which gradually wound tighter circles before stopping still in the air, twisting and rotating around itself carelessly.   
  
Breathing in through her nose, Paige grimaced and sat back on her legs, fixing Leo with an apathetic stare. "I'm sorry," she sighed.  
  
"No, she's gotta be around here somewhere," Leo asserted furiously and slapped his hands down onto the map, almost crawling on it, and scrutinising it, examining even the most minute of details. It was as if he believed that by staring at the map, somehow the location of his daughter would leap out at him in neon, infrared signs with large arrows that read: "Here!"  
  
But he had no such luck.  
  
Paige let the crystal clunk onto the floor, and gripped at her thigh with her right hand, the chain still wrapped around her fingers. She felt angry and confused. Did this mean that Melly wasn't in the vicinity of San Francisco? And if not, where on Earth could she be? The task of finding her suddenly seemed even more impossible than Paige had deemed it earlier. Sadly, she looked down at the ground, and let the chain of the scrying stone slip onto the floor where it jangled distastefully and came to a rest in a small heap of silver.  
  
Not quite knowing how to console her brother-in-law, Paige placed an awkward yet soothing hand onto his shoulder, and helped him to his feet. "Let's get you to bed, shall we?" she offered. Leo didn't seem too enthusiastic about the idea, but he didn't protest either. She took him downstairs and led the way into his bedroom.  
  
While he tugged off his pants, Paige heaved a weary sigh and sat on the bed. Still wearing the grimy, sweaty shirt, Leo's weight soon lifted hers a little as he too sat down. He pulled his dirty shirt over his head and after a moment, shuddered at the cold.   
  
"Do you want another shirt to sleep in?" Paige asked, wondering if he'd be warm enough in just his boxer shorts.  
  
The distraught father simply shook his desolate head and then clambered into the bed, letting Paige help him pull the duvet over his chest. He breathed loudly and abrasively for a few minutes, before calming and closing his eyes.  
  
Paige sat with him a while longer until he fell into the world of the dreaming, before getting up and going downstairs.   
  
Once in the kitchen, Paige began to make herself a cup of instant coffee when something made her stop. She couldn't quite place what felt odd about the moment, but she suddenly felt the urge to be in the attic. Without another moment's consideration, her body had disappeared in a flurry of white, crisp orbs and shot through the ceiling in silent aggravation.  
  
She reappeared in the doorway of the attic, in case her instinct had been warning her of danger, an intruder, but the room was empty. The map she had sat at under an hour previously had curled itself back up, but that was all that seemed different. Slowly and graciously, she paced over to the Book of Shadows and pawed through it without really taking in any of the information presented to her. It took her a minute to notice the silver chain hanging out from one of the pages, bookmarking it. Frowning in wonder, she lifted the loose chain in her left hand and recognised it as that of the scrying stone.   
  
"How did it..." she murmured as she fingered it lightly while glancing at the map on the floor and the place where she was certain she had left the stone.   
  
As her fingers traced their way up the chain, she found her way into the page of the book it was keeping open, and lifted a stack of pages over to see where the crystal lay.   
  
"Titania," she read, her forehead creasing in thought. "The mother?"  
  
As her eyes flitted down the page, the witch learned that Titania was something many demons held dear to their hearts, a soothing mother to them, someone to teach them and get them back to their feet if they'd been bruised in battle. They followed her like a family, ensuring Titania's eternal protection.   
  
'The demoness,' the book said, 'traditionally reigns for around two centuries before passing her leadership on to an heir. The heir is hand-picked from any race, chosen by the Titania for her heart, and then her blood is infused with the Titania's to become the new demon mother. Demons from afar will go to any length to appease Titania, and protect her from any possible threat. In return she nurtures and heals them.'  
  
Paige looked up, her eyes narrowed. "That's a heck of a weird demon." Glancing over the words again, there was a nagging feeling at the back of Paige's mind; something she should know, but wasn't coming to her. And then it did. "Ohmigod," she uttered, and orbed out immediately.  
  
A disembodied voice woke Leo with a start and caused him to stare wildly around his room in terror for a few moments before it registered that the panicked voce belonged to Paige, and that she was in the process of orbing in - practically on top of him.  
  
"A demon's got Mel to be her heir and the mother of demons for two hundred years and then she'll have to get a new one and she looks after them and nurtures them and she'll be evil we have to go now now now!"  
  
Leo exhaled and tried to sit up, his eyes bleary and half-open. "Your hair's fine," he grumbled groggily.  
  
Paige leapt up and down, jostling the bed and causing Leo to cry out in surprise. "Not my hair - an heir! Leo-" she leant forward and grabbed his shoulders, her hands slipping on the sweat covering his torso, but still gripping him tightly. "The demon who has Melinda, is going, to make, her, her heir."  
  
Lips slightly pouting, the lower jutting out, cold realisation crept through Leo like ice melting on a tilted surface. "Oh God," he uttered, jumping out of bed and began tugging on his pants. He then changed his mind, pulled them back off, stumbled to the bathroom and promptly vomited.  
  
Cringing, Paige sat edgily on the bed whilst she listened to his body racking and choking over the toilet bowl, and then the sounds of the shower grating on. A few minutes later, Leo emerged, still sopping wet, but with clean water rather than fretful sweat. He precariously pulled his pants back on and then flopped onto the bed beside Paige, cupping his face in his hands.   
  
Rubbing her right hand over his soft back, Paige inched over to the edge of the bed and cocked her head, looking at him. "So here's what I found," she said, getting right down to business. "This Titania demon is like a mother to those who need it. They go to her for help, encouragement and healing. She acts like their little solace thingy to protect them from the big, good world, and in return they protect her with their lives. Now in the Book, it says-"  
  
"How do you know it's this... Titania demon that has my daughter?"  
  
Paige stopped short. How did she know? She then remembered how the scrying crystal had bookmarked the page in the Book of Shadows. She hadn't even questioned it properly at the time, but once she'd explained it to Leo, its oddness struck her somewhat obtrusively.   
  
"Maybe just scrying doesn't apply only to the map nowadays?" she suggested, and shrugged. "Leo, trust me, this is the demon we're after. And since time is not on our side, I suggest we get our whitelighter asses on the move."  
  
Nodding determinedly, Leo grimaced and stood. "What should we do first?"  
  
With a coy look on her face, Paige gave a small half-smile and bobbed her head up and down assuredly. "I think it's about time for a good old fashioned torture interrogation of some of our local demonic friends."  
  
* 


End file.
